Zion Lutheran Ogden IA

Zion Lutheran Ogden IA Faithfully serving Christ in Ogden, IA.

"Six Days Ye Shall Labor!"Dear Devotion-ers:Somewhere in history one four letter word replaced another. The word ‘work’...
09/07/2026

"Six Days Ye Shall Labor!"

Dear Devotion-ers:

Somewhere in history one four letter word replaced another. The word ‘work’ became ‘free.’

‘Free’ especially when combined with stuff, has became a political promise race to the bottom. Free cell phones soon gave way to freedom from earned college debt, which in turn has morphed into cries for free food, free housing, free healthcare, free public transportation. Free has become the rallying cry against the rich, nobly seen by the members of the ‘Free Party’ as the oppressed against the privileged. I guess we should have seen it coming. God did.

Before sin came into the world, the Creator had delivered the earth, planets, seas and stars in pristine condition. Everything above and below was balanced, it all harmonized perfectly. Ecosystems were healthy and all waited for the one thing necessary. They needed man to ‘work’. In the ultimate “Father knows best,” God made man to work. Who knew?

Genesis 2:15
The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.

The Hebrew word for work in the scripture above is avad (עֲבָד). It is a most special word and never to be confused with any other four-letter words that we moderns might use to curse work. Work as God ordained it was labor as an act of service and worship to our God.

After sin, work was not the curse. Not even hard work. Both were and remain blessings from Almighty God. Sin resulted in our work getting separated from God. Unproductive and frustrating work became the penalty. God didn’t free us up from work, his punishment for our sin just made it more complicated to keep it connected to our worship. Spiraling sin filled it with failure, the premature death of dreams and the collapse of all accomplished work over time. And into that, the devil gave birth to the ‘free movement.'. Why work? Someone else should.

The free everything movement has roots a hundred times older than the oldest young progressive of our day. King Solomon the wisest of the wise wrote:

Proverbs 13:4
The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied.

Now, of course, many will argue that the Bible teaches us to help the poor and look after the destitute. True enough. Indeed, such attention from the church is a loving work of worship for our God. However, we are admonished against empowering the lazy, those who can work but choose to rest from it by ‘free.’
St. Paul had to warn the church against those who lost their identity in Christ of working and mistakenly found lazy freeing, without the need to labor.

2 Thessalonians 2:10-13
For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies. Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. As for you, brothers, do not grow weary in doing good.

Today the political forces struggle against one another over the notion of free stuff and who should pay. Amidst that battle for votes, we should never lose sight of what God made our labor to be. All work that is noble and legitimate should be pursued as rewarding, satisfying, fulfilling, and most importantly, part of our daily worship.

Colossians 3:23
Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men

Blessed Labor Day!

Discussion:

How was/is your work disconnected from God?
How much better will it be if it is part of your worship of God?
God is good and with and in Jesus, we work for good, just as God made it!

Pastor Max

09/06/2026

Live Service

Another FriDAVE: “Nothing that the resurrection can’t heal!“ Dear Devotion-ers: There’s a Protestant Bible and then a Ca...
09/04/2026

Another FriDAVE: “Nothing that the resurrection can’t heal!“

Dear Devotion-ers:

There’s a Protestant Bible and then a Catholic Bible that has a few more books in it. The Ethiopian Bible has 81 books in it and some even 88, compared to the 66 in the Protestant Bible. How do you decide which should be included in the Bible? Tell you what, I can’t answer that, but God already has.

That very first Easter morning, when Jesus appeared to all those people. Let’s just focus on those two disciples who were just walking down the road to the village of Emmaus when Jesus appeared beside them. Somehow, they didn’t recognize him! And when he questioned them about what they were talking about, they were astounded that he did not know what had happened to a man named Jesus that they thought would be their savior and instead he had been crucified. And then Jesus opened up their minds to “the Bible”. He shared with them “it is written“ as he went through scripture that proved that the Messiah must suffer and die just as Jesus had, but that he would be raised from the dead. Their hearts burned within them as he revealed these passages to them. Then, as they sat to eat, and he blessed the meal, their eyes were opened and they saw it was Jesus. You see that raised from the dead or what you would call resurrection part of the story is what is found in every book of the Bible that should mean something to you. Without the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, there is only a story. Understanding the resurrection is the real life of salvation.

As I visit with people and we always get around to talking about our pains and our troubles, I’ve come up with a favorite line that I did not invent. But truth of this fact has placed it in my mind. There are no troubles and no pains that the resurrection cannot fix.

Just like Jesus revealed that fact to those two disciples and the room full of others he visited later that night we must look to the resurrection of Jesus as the proof that we have life through him. For even though we have all of these written words, it is a spoken word that the world hears through us that has the power to save through the resurrection. And this would be the part in our story when Jesus says “now you go and tell them.”

Luke 24:45
Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.

Discussion:

How does the resurrection of Jesus bless us?
The hymnist sings the news, “I know that my Redeemer lives, what comfort this sweet sentence gives!” How might you share that comfort?
God is good and Jesus is sweet!

09/04/2026

Scripture & a Prayer
Isaiah 52:7

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”

Dear Heavenly Father:

You have done all things well and given us much to talk about. Still, Your good is often missing from our daily speech and we share things of lesser value. Help us to overcome the daily swill with the swell of Your good news. Strengthen us to speak of Your Son, Jesus, our Lord, who saves! In Jesus, Amen!

"The Greatest Resurrection Witness!" Dear Devotion-ers:If you had to choose the most influential witness of the resurrec...
09/03/2026

"The Greatest Resurrection Witness!"

Dear Devotion-ers:

If you had to choose the most influential witness of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, who would you choose? Hmmm….. Well, let’s see. The Apostles would be a good place to start, certainly Peter and Thomas would have vivid heartfelt accounts of beholding not only Jesus’ flesh, but his unchanged spirit of love and forgiveness. Paul tells that there are at least a crowd of hundreds of witnesses (500 posits Paul) who saw Jesus alive post crucifixion and all at one time. No doubt there is a hearty list of resurrection provers from which to choose. But… who is the most influential?

I choose a guy that wasn’t there. He has firsthand knowledge without the benefit of on-site sight. His name is Job.

About the same ‘time-distance’ from the actual resurrection pre as we are post, Job saw it all, and even better he understood it all and took it into his own body and mind as personal truth. And even better, his words were written more firmly than he hoped, unable to be erased by wind, wave, time, and even sin. Immortal stands his faith that he would see His Lord in the flesh, his and his.

Another guy, known as Gregory the Great, a pastor who 600 years after Christ studied extensively the man Job, wrote about this up-there influential resurrection witness’ faith and what he knew:

"We follow blessed Job’s faith, and we believe in the really tangible body of our Redeemer after the resurrection. Consequently we affirm that our flesh after the resurrection will be both the same and different: the same by nature and different by glory, the same in truth and different in power. It will be delicate, because incorruptible. It will be tangible, because it will not lose the essential reality of its nature. The holy man shows us with what hope he holds that same confidence in the resurrection and with how much certitude he awaits it."

Dear people, I’m not sure where you put Job on your list of top sufferers of all time, (he’s #1 on my list), he’s #1 or close to being the best resurrection witness of all time because he saw through faith with perfect eyesight and testified with a carrying voice to the truth of the risen Redeemer from an eon afar with certitude. And still there is another we must add to that list of witnesses to the truth of the resurrection who are so sure of their own that they aren’t afraid to laugh at sin and grave, perfectly equipped to tell the news of death’s own mortal weakness, that it can’t and won’t last.

Any idea who? Hmmmm...... (hint: check the mirror!) 😊

Job 19:23-27
“Oh that my words were written!
Oh that they were inscribed in a book!
Oh that with an iron pen and lead
they were engraved in the rock forever!
For I know that my Redeemer lives,
and at the last he will stand upon the earth.
And after my skin has been thus destroyed,
yet in my flesh I shall see God,
whom I shall see for myself,
and my eyes shall behold, and not another.
My heart faints within me!

Discussion:

How does the certitude of the resurrection of the dead bring new life into today?
How are you a Jesus resurrection witness and to whom do you testify? (hint: if you go to a LCMS church, you likely do it every Sunday. Hint, hint: The Apostles Creed ring a bell?) 😊
God is good and I know that my Redeemer lives!

Pastor Max

Hammarstedt Scrapbook
09/03/2026

Hammarstedt Scrapbook

09/03/2026

Scripture & a Prayer
John 1:50-51

Jesus answered him, “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater things than these.” And he said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

Dear Heavenly Father:

You see everything and all past, present and future are in Your focus. We see with myopic eyes only the present. By faith, You improve our sight, joining us into Your eyesight able to see beginning from Creation to the Last Day, and all because we can see the cross of Christ the Crucified Lord and Savior of all humanity, in clear focus for all who believe. Strengthen our faith to see You, so that we can sharpen our vision to see what the world cannot. We see Jesus! Amen.

"I've Got A Name!"Dear Devotion-ers:In 1975, an up and comer pop singer came out with a song that stayed on the charts f...
09/02/2026

"I've Got A Name!"

Dear Devotion-ers:

In 1975, an up and comer pop singer came out with a song that stayed on the charts for 17 consecutive weeks about a name. His name. Like the pine trees lining the winding road, the singing bird, and the croaking toad, he had a name. Who knew? :)

There were two main points to crooner Croce’s song. He carried his name like his daddy did was the first, and that he was moving ahead with that name and his dreams so that life wouldn’t pass him by, like his daddy’s had. Songs are just songs, but names aren’t just names. We carry them and they have a reputation built in. It meant something at my arrival to be Dale Phillips’ son. Over the many years, dad isn’t much of the character of my name anymore, it now belongs to me and who I am is carried in my reputation.

Every church of every denomination carries a name. Traditional churches, especially of any age usually are named after someone. Newer, mostly non-denominational churches of this marketing era, name themselves after ‘movin’ me down the highway’ clever concepts. I am not advocating for either, but I do believe we can learn something by carrying our name proudly.

In my Lutheran Church Missouri Synod denomination, the number one church name is “Trinity,” followed by St. Paul and St. John. Zion and Christ are down the list of the most popular. Redeemer, Faith, Grace, Immanuel, and Our Savior are high up there too. While all of these are wonderful names that point to Jesus, I wonder how we live UP to them?

I’ve spent the last two days with a fine group of Christian leaders from a particular church working to refocus their ministry, align with their congregation, and redefine themselves to their community. We could have started with the traditional struggle of developing a succinct, meaning-filled and edgy mission statement, followed by visions and values. That is worthy work, but there was a better place to start, than that name they carry with them. “King of Kings Lutheran Church.”

I’m not really in a contemplative mood early this morning to spend much time ciphering the depths of meaning of the names pine tree, singing bird and croaking toad, but King of Kings shouts something to me, as does Trinity, St. Paul, St. John, Christ, Zion and all the rest. The good folks at King of Kings hopefully will soon study and work and build off their name which doesn’t just mean something, it is something, in fact that ‘daddy’ whose name that they carry means everything and is worth proudly shouting to the world and each other in how they live, act, gather, and worship.

Dear friends, you have a name which has meaning, so does your church!

Revelation 17:14
“They will make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them, for he is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those with him are called and chosen and faithful.”

King of Kings Lutheran Church. They have a name!

Discussion:

What does your name carry? How is it laden with reputation?
What does your church name mean? It shouts, do you live it?
If you don’t have a church, what does that say about you?
God is good, and Jesus has the name above all names, the King of Kings (Redeemer, Our Savior, Christ, Immanuel, etc.)

09/02/2026

Scripture & a Prayer
Psalm 61:8

So will I ever sing praises to your name, as I perform my vows day after day.

Dear Heavenly Father:

You have given us all Creation as both blessing and responsibility. Likewise, you have given us Your name, and it too comes with both blessing and responsibility. Blessings that cover us with your protection and light in the shadows of evil’s despair. Responsibilities to shine out and ring out with the good news of the one who shares His name, His Kingdom, His eternity with all who believe in Him, through the good merits and availing sacrifice of The Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ. Strengthen our faith and empower our witness. In Jesus, Amen!

Address

319 W Elm Street
Ogden, IA
50212

Telephone

+15152752234

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